Easter eggs all wrapped up in their glittering foil are pretty to look at, but if that is all they are, then they fail to fulfil their purpose. For Easter eggs are not primarily given as a feast for the eyes, but as a feast for the stomach! Nobody in their right mind leaves an Easter egg on permanent display on their sideboard. Instead we tear away the foil to get at the chocolate inside. The wrapping is secondary – it’s what is at the heart of the egg which counts.
What is true of Easter eggs is true of Easter itself. Easter is a great time of the year. It’s a time for Easter eggs. It’s a time for family reunions. It’s a time for going to church – to enjoy the Easter flowers, to sing the Easter hymns, and to smile at the minister as yet again he eats a daffodil to amuse the children.
Yet these are all the wrappings. It’s the heart of Easter which counts. The heart of Easter is a story of a bloody cross and of an empty tomb. It’s the death or Jesus and his resurrection which count. But there’s the problem. Crosses and tombs are not attractive sights.
There was nothing attractive about a wooden cross. Crucifixion was the cruellest and most barbaric form of execution. The Assyrians invented it, but their method was too quick – they merely impaled their victim on a sharpened stake. The Romans perfected the method of crucifixion. They dragged it out and refined it, in order to let their victims have more time to meditate upon their crimes. By the second day, the victims were half-crazed as the crows began to peck out their eyes.
If we are to get to the heart of Easter, we need to put the wrappings to one side and focus upon the cross of Jesus. Jesus was crucified for us: it is this we celebrate every ‘Good Friday’. Or is it ‘Bad Friday’. The physical pain must have been intense, but that was not all. For Jesus experienced the pain of rejection and of desertion. As Jesus hung on the cross the sky went dark – there was an eclipse of the sun that afternoon. However, the darkness of that terrible day was but a poor reflection of the dreadful darkness Jesus must have experienced there on the Cross.
Then came another cry from the lips of Jesus. “I am thirsty”. Who wouldn’t have been thirsty after experiencing the torture or the cross for three hours?
John tells us that Jesus cried out, “It is finished”. Then he bowed his head and died. Were the dying words of Jesus an admission that he was done for – that he was finished? Was Jesus here conceding defeat? No, Jesus was saying the very opposite. “It is finished!” was not a last gasp of death, but it was a great shout of victory. “I’ve done it!”, “I’ve achieved what I set out to do!”
The fact is that the death of Jesus was part of God’s plan. It was for this purpose that he came into the world. What’s more, when Jesus died, he died for us. To use the jargon of the Bible, Jesus “died for our sins”. Something actually happened which affects us all. In the words of an old hymn:
He died that we might be forgiven.
He died to make us good
That we might go at least to heaven
Saved by his precious blood.
Jesus in dying on his cross defeated the enemy. It was only on Easter Day that this became clear. The empty tomb proves that Jesus die not die in vain. The truth or the Christian faith stands or falls with the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
“If there’s no resurrection for Christ everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors… And if Christ wasn’t raised, then all you’re doing is wandering in the dark, as lost as ever… If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’ve a pretty sorry lot” (1 Corinthians 15.16-18 The Message).
We have to admit from a rational perspective, belief in the resurrection is absurd. Dead people do not rise from the dead. However, as Lord Byron claimed that “there are times when truth is stranger than fiction”.
If we undo the wrappings of Easter, we get to the heart of the Easter faith. Christ died that all of may be forgiven, and he rose on the third day that all of us may have everlasting life.